Choices for lieutenant governor

March 07, 2002

In Illinois primary elections, voters select their parties' nominees for lieutenant governor independent of candidates running for governor. Candidates for the two top offices in state government can choose to run as a team, as has occurred this year among Republicans. But they aren't obligated to do so. This year, none of the three Democrats running for governor has paired with a candidate for lieutenant governor.

On the Republican side, the Tribune's endorsement for lieutenant governor goes to Carl Hawkinson, the Downstate state senator widely respected on both sides of the aisle for his legal acumen. As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee since 1993, Hawkinson has been relied upon to render advice on complicated legal matters facing the legislature. A Harvard Law School graduate and former Knox County state's attorney, Hawkinson perhaps is best known in the General Assembly for helping author a comprehensive rewrite of the state's juvenile justice laws. He is the running mate of gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan, the attorney general of Illinois.

FOR THE RECORD - This story contains corrected material, published March 8, 2002.

Hawkinson is endorsed over state Rep. William O'Connor, also a solid choice, who nominally paired up with Lt. Gov. Corinne Wood in her gubernatorial bid. Through the course of the campaign, though, O'Connor has become an estranged partner; in essence, he and Wood are running independently. The Riverside native gets good marks as a moderate, pro-choice legislator who has performed ably in state government. Other candidates include Jack McInerney, a Chicago commodities broker, and Charles Owens, a pharmacist from Downstate Henry.

For the Democrats, Michael Kelleher stands out as the candidate with the most sensible and realistic ideas for the office, and also a candidate with a firm grasp of a wide range of state government issues. The other candidates in this race--Patrick Quinn and Joyce Washington--possess some of these qualities, but not all of them.

Kelleher is the soft-spoken head of the Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development at Illinois State University (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). He would be far more likely to work constructively with a Democratic gubernatorial nominee than would former state treasurer Quinn, a political opportunist who gathered petition signatures for several different races this time around (his ninth) before deciding that his chances of victory were best in the race for lieutenant governor.

That said, Quinn presents some creative ideas on how to contend with education funding disparities, such as reining in the proliferation of tax increment financing districts by putting sunsets on them every five years or so.

Washington is a high-energy health-care administrator who has done executive and human resource work for Advocate Health Care and, before that, Columbia HCA. Washington offers big ideas for the office and, in particular, health-care issues, but little on the subject of how to pay for them.